# 455
A debate now rages on some flu forums as to whether potential good news on the flu front should be downplayed. The reasoning is that people will use just about any excuse to put thoughts of a potential pandemic, and any preparations for it, on the backburner.
I understand the frustration.
I’ve spend many hours trying to convince family and friends of the wisdom of being prepared, only to have my efforts undermined by some highly speculative `news’ item that will reportedly delivery us from this plague. These reports rarely mention that this miracle is either theoretical, or is probably, at best, five years away.
As tempting as it is to summarily dismiss these reports, we do ourselves, and those we hope to inform, a disservice by not presenting both sides. Yes, it would make our lives much easier to ignore these reports. But it is far better to combat a lie with the truth, than with another lie.
In the past week, we’ve seen headlines heralding the fact that some people may have some built in immunity to bird flu. That is good news. Assuming it’s true.
The headlines have, as headlines often do, misled the reading public into thinking this immunity may be greater than scientists actually believe, but those who read the articles discover that the immunity is probably small. In some people it may prevent death, but it is unlikely to prevent infection.
Still, any port in a storm.
Similarly, after three deaths in Egypt from a `Tamiflu resistant’ strain of the H5N1 virus, we’ve learned that the last two deaths were from a non-resistant strain.
Skeptics on the flu forums have pointed out that dead is dead, and that this proves the governments are lying. They see Tamiflu as some sort of `false hope’ dangled in front of the masses, and seem intent on denigrating its use at every turn.
While I can’t prove that the governments aren’t lying (how do you prove something like that?), we do know that Tamiflu doesn’t work unless it is administered early. The fact that the last two patients died, even though they received the drug, doesn’t mean they had a resistant strain. They simply may not have received the drug in time.
Once again, the (presumed to be) fact that the last two Egyptian cases weren’t Tamiflu resistant is good news.
Will the virus, as many people maintain, become Tamiflu resistant in the future?
We’ve seen other antiviral medications lose their effectiveness with overuse, so it is possible. It may even be likely. But for now, Tamiflu, Relenza, Amantadine, and Rimantadine all seem to have some therapeutic effects on this infection.
None of these are cures. At best, they can lessen the severity of the infection, and improve the patient’s chances of recovery.
There are several new vaccine manufacturing techniques under development that could, in a matter of a few years, greatly increase our capacity to produce inoculations against a pandemic strain. Once again, this is good news. But we have to temper this with the knowledge that they are still largely experimental, and the logistics of actually delivering a vaccine to billions of people during a pandemic haven’t been solved.
And perhaps the best news yet this year is the fact that this winter, we’ve not seen nearly as many outbreaks as we expected to. That could change in the coming months, but for now, it has been relatively quiet. After the geographic expansion of the virus last spring, many scientists expected an explosion of cases this year. It hasn’t happened yet, and scientists aren’t exactly sure why.
No, the threat of bird flu hasn’t diminished. And if anything, the warnings from scientists and officials worldwide have become more strident. Governments are clearly very worried.
People should be aware of the threat, and should be preparing. And they should do so armed with all the `facts’ as we know them. Those of us in the flu community should be conveying both good and bad news on the flu front, without bias.
The idea that we should be presenting only the information we feel is important, or backs up our position, is abhorrent. Good news is, of course, subject to scrutiny. Just like any news. If it's flawed, or premature, or overstated, it should be exposed as such.
People will simply have to make up their own minds as to the threat level.
If a little good news is enough to dissuade them, then they will have to live with that decision.
Or not. As the case may be.
